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- Newsgroups: sci.space
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!socrates!mike
- From: mike@socrates.umd.edu (Mike Santangelo)
- Subject: Re: Energya and Freedom and Soyuz ACRV and...
- Message-ID: <1992Aug22.044639.21847@socrates.umd.edu>
- Organization: University of Maryland University College
- References: <1992Aug14.130334.8888@ke4zv.uucp> <16l1h1INNa8t@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Aug17.154937.24078@ke4zv.uucp> <1992Aug18.105700.6152@iti.org>
- Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 04:46:39 GMT
- Lines: 76
-
- aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
-
- >In article <1992Aug17.154937.24078@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
-
- >>Indeed. If we follow the plan of using Soyuz and HL Deltas, the Shuttle
- >>fleet is *gone*.
-
- >OK, I have posted extensive numbers on the alternatives. Let's see some
- >numbers from you. What will the Shuttle do that will not only justify the huge
- >expense of keeping it but also pay for the opportunity cost of the cheaper
- >infrastructure?
-
- >I await your reply.
-
- >>With this plan 3/4 of the
- >>Shuttle fleet is available for other work than servicing Fred.
-
- >Shuttle flies about eight times a year (at least it has for the last
- >2 years and looks like it will do so this year). Since using Shuttle
- >as the ACRV will about half the number of flights there will be NO
- >non station shuttle flights.
-
- >Thus we will be spending $5 billion each and every year to resuply the
- >station. That's an interesting number since you could build the
- >Porche of ACRV's for that and could do ALL your tasks for 20% of that
- >figure.
-
- >>As to the $65 million firm price for Soyuz, I've posted about this
- >>several times.
-
- >1. That is about three times the price I have seen for a Soyuz. I am
- >assuming $100M per Atlas/Soyuz launch even though the actual cost will
- >likely be much closer to $75 million.
-
- >2. We are stuck with Soyuz anyway since we won't get an ACRV.
-
- Probably true, but I will remain skeptical about its inclusion
- into Fred's support infrastructure until I see it go up, and
- probably remain that way until someone/some people come down in
- one (one would hope as a dry run and not due to a real emergency).
-
- >3. Lots can be done to mitigate this. We can sign long term contracts,
- >build in the US under licence, or a number of other alternatives.
-
- What do you think the tooling cost is going to be to make them?
- Russian fabrication <> american, I would think this would be
- non-trivial in terms of start-up time. Once american workers are
- put to the task with big aerospace contractors to manage them you
- can probably bet that the Soyuz manufacture is going to get pretty
- uncomptetive pretty quickly, especially if you factor in start-up
- and tooling costs. I would also assume this would take quite a few years
- before the first american produced Soyuz rolls off the line.
-
- No, I think we should let the Russians keep making them, labor
- costs are bound to stay low at least in the near term, also
- give them something to do and some hard currency.
-
- Geez I hope they (the Russians) spend ALOT of time making all
- the instrumentation readable (clearly, well translated) in English.
- Including all the needed documentation.
-
- How would these systems be certified in the US?
-
- Has anyone given thought to training logistics with regard to
- piloting the things? Would they take place in Russia or the US?
- I take it this is factored into the overall cost?
-
- I've been reading this thread for sometime and really hadn't
- seen any of the last several topics discussed. Just seems kinda
- 'assumed'.
-
- --
- +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
- Michael F. Santangelo + Internet: mike@socrates.umd.edu
- Computer & Network Systems Admin + mike@cbl.umd.edu
- CBL / CEES (Solomons Island) + mike@kavishar.umd.edu
-